About avivah
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg was born in wartime London, where her parents found refuge after the 1938 Nazi takeover of Austria. When she was five years old, the family moved to Glasgow and her father, an eminent rabbi, was appointed head of the Rabbinical Court of Scotland. Growing up, Avivah studied the Bible with her father every day and continued her Jewish education as a student at Gateshead Seminary near Newcastle.
While still in her teens, she co-authored a book of Bible studies, Sabbath Shiurim, with Rabbi M. Miller, which won such wide acclaim in Orthodox Jewish circles that Feldheim Publishers commissioned her to translate a work about the Book of Proverbs by the great 19th century Biblical commentator known as the Malbim.
A lover of all literature, Avivah went on to enroll at Cambridge University, earning a double first B.A. and a Ph.D. with a thesis on the writings of George Eliot.
Upon moving to Jerusalem shortly thereafter, Avivah became a popular lecturer in English literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1975, she married physicist Eric Zornberg, with whom she has three children and ten grandchildren to date.
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's career as a teacher and speaker has flourished over the years at various institutions of adult Jewish learning in Jerusalem as well as in the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Hong Kong, Finland, Sweden, Russia and Poland. On her annual five-week tours of the US, she lectures at universities, synagogues, Jewish community centres and psychoanalytic institutes. She also travels to the UK, where she holds a Visiting Lectureship at the London School of Jewish Studies. Zornberg's striking interpretations of the Torah, based on Midrash, literary theory, psychoanalysis and philosophy, have led to the writing of five books.
Avivah's most recent book, published by Yale University Press, is Moses: A Human Life (2018). She is currently at work on a commentary on Leviticus, to complement her works on Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers.
While still in her teens, she co-authored a book of Bible studies, Sabbath Shiurim, with Rabbi M. Miller, which won such wide acclaim in Orthodox Jewish circles that Feldheim Publishers commissioned her to translate a work about the Book of Proverbs by the great 19th century Biblical commentator known as the Malbim.
A lover of all literature, Avivah went on to enroll at Cambridge University, earning a double first B.A. and a Ph.D. with a thesis on the writings of George Eliot.
Upon moving to Jerusalem shortly thereafter, Avivah became a popular lecturer in English literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1975, she married physicist Eric Zornberg, with whom she has three children and ten grandchildren to date.
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's career as a teacher and speaker has flourished over the years at various institutions of adult Jewish learning in Jerusalem as well as in the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Hong Kong, Finland, Sweden, Russia and Poland. On her annual five-week tours of the US, she lectures at universities, synagogues, Jewish community centres and psychoanalytic institutes. She also travels to the UK, where she holds a Visiting Lectureship at the London School of Jewish Studies. Zornberg's striking interpretations of the Torah, based on Midrash, literary theory, psychoanalysis and philosophy, have led to the writing of five books.
Avivah's most recent book, published by Yale University Press, is Moses: A Human Life (2018). She is currently at work on a commentary on Leviticus, to complement her works on Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers.
